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New fighter jet camouflage schemes
- astrosi 15y agoThis is a pretty old idea however not applied to aircraft, it was used on ships in WW1 and WW2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage
- philwelch 15y agoIt's more similar to the MARPAT camouflage pattern used by the Marines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARPAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARPAT
- ionfish 15y agoThe rationale is closer to that behind dazzle camouflage, though—to confuse, rather than to conceal.
- nosse 15y agoZebras used it even before that. Practically all camouflage ideas can be found from nature.
- ayu 15y agoExcept they used it to deter bloodsucking insects. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/120209-zebra-stripes-horseflies-bugs-akesson-science/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/120209-zebra-st...
- nosse 15y agoHow do you explain okapi and quagga? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga
- dfc 15y agoExplain what?
- nosse 15y agoIf stripes are for insects not biting, then how come some species have developed only partial stripes? Would not make sense to get all the flies to concentrate on your non striped body-parts... Against lions this makes perfect sense as having striped backside makes the overall shape harder to grasp.
- dfc 15y agoIts not that I agree with the parent but did you read the linked article? "The results may help explain why zebras' skinniest stripes are on their faces and legs. "That's also the place where you have the thinnest skin," said Åkesson, of Sweden's Lunds University." But as I stated up thread even if this research was definitive it does not preclude the camouflage benefits...
- dfc 15y agoExcept that is just one study, not definitive and does not preclude multiple benefits.
- jstclair 15y agoAnd similar to German WWI "Lozenge" aircraft camoflauge, which I'm surprised the OP didn't mention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lozenge_camouflage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lozenge_camouflage
- ralfd 15y agoWhy did I never see this in movies?
- maeon3 15y agoAn better camouflage scheme would be to identify the general direction of the aggressor, and take a photograph of the terrain (or sky) in the opposite direction, then tint or color of the airplane with that background, so it blends in. If the computer could establish the exact location and direction and velocity of the looker, it could make itself partially invisible by projecting to the viewer the same colors that would have been projected had the plane not even been there. With enough knowledge of the viewer, a scrolling image of the background could be projected.
- tzaman 15y agoAt the speed these aircrafts are moving, I doubt there would be significant improvement over these camo solutions. Not to mention the price difference.
- jpdus 15y agoLike that one? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGzpi9lCck&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGzpi9lCck&feature=youtu...
- cabirum 15y agoDoes camouflage really helps in modern air combat? Aircrafts engage each other mostly on beyond visual range distances, and dogfighting in kinda rare now. Also, HUDs should assist in tracking of targets and highlight them, so camo will make no difference. The only use for camo I can think of is to hide the aircraft while it's stationed on the airstrip - in a relatively vulnerable position.
- lbotos 15y agoI'm not sure. I read something recently that the last modern dogfight happened around 1999. I'm also confused as to how the concept of "hiding" which way a plane is flying can be achieved with this. If I'm still / have ground support and see something in the sky / radar I'm pretty sure no matter what color it is (even if it closely matches the sky) I could say which direction it was moving? What am I missing? Either way, as a art student that always wanted to fly a fighter jet, these look really sweet!
- nosse 15y agoOne of the biggest threads to a fighter is another fighter flying above it. From the upper guys perspective everything is moving and everything below is green/grey/brown or dark blue. At the same time stealth technology is rising and using your own radar might show your own position. Fighter camo is probably not that big thing, but all things concerned it just might give a little edge in some situation.
- electromagnetic 15y agoI think fighter camo likely has a bigger role to take off and landing when they're not in a 100% safe area. The military doesn't just plan for the current war, but for all possible wars. Fighters aren't going to handle the small arms fire like a Warthog will. So when you can't add the extra armour, it's probably worth making it harder to see.
- maeon3 15y agoModern fighter jets give pilots helmets which contain a 360 degree view of the battlefield to show them where the airplanes are. The computers which acquire the location of the other airplanes use radar and visual spectrum. What other way can the human or computer find out position direction and velocity of enemy jets who jam radar and camouflage themselves? History channel has some modern Pilots talking about dogfight speeds of mach .9, radar, and radar stealth (sending back scrambled radar messages) to enemy craft is the deciding factor in a dogfight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnUwxDhE1kU&t=9m9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnUwxDhE1kU&t=9m9s
- bigiain 15y agoI wonder whether camouflage has changed in purpose (on fighter jets) and is no longer about "fooling" the human visual system, but about fooling computer vision. I'd guess those "New Aesthetic" style pixelated camo paintjobs would do a pretty good job of fooling OpenCV based classifiers…
- sp332 15y agoI'm not sure about airplanes, but I know it's a lot harder for a human to pick out a soldier in digital camo.
- thwest 15y agoThe purpose of the camo didn't have to change, the purpose of computer vision has been to mimic the human visual system already. Both systems of perception take pains to match the sensed scene against expected structure of objects in the natural world (high contrast gradients at object boundaries, object flow). Anything that can be made to have random structure will provide false cues to edge and flow based perception. There is some evidence of the similarity of the perception systems in projects like SSIM that correlate structure of images under sparsifying transforms such as wavelets to human quality measures.
- 16s 15y agoSee, security through obscurity has a purpose.
- Nrsolis 15y ago"Security through obscurity" has ALWAYS had a purpose in the spectrum of techniques used to defeat the enemy. The term is just misapplied in the context of cryptographic systems to denote a system where the algorithm isn't published. e.g. if the security of your cryptosystem depends on anything more than just the security of the key, you're toast. In NETSEC, we see tons of trojans/worms that try mightily to camouflage their existence with innocent-looking control protocols hidden in normal looking HTTP (or HTTPS) traffic and other things.
- philjackson 15y agoI'm assuming camo. is more important for these planes when they're on the ground than in the air?
- electromagnetic 15y agoNear ground too, I would say. Take off and landing is a relatively slow process where they're highly vulnerable, especially the air-to-air fighters.
- nosse 15y agoI'd guess that fighter camouflage also makes fighters more harder to track visually from satellites. This might not interest Americans, but for some air forces it could be a factor?
- hmottestad 15y agoLooks like the sort of pixelated image a satellite might provide?
- pbhjpbhj 15y agoSo hiding the planes - or at least their model - when on the ground from high-pass recon or satellite views, sounds most likely the primary reason for this sort of design.
- sc00ter 15y agoBut that's just a bunch of photos. Where's the article, and what's the science behind these?
- hedgehog 15y agoRead these with a grain of salt but this guy provides some insight into the design process for these patterns: http://www.hyperstealth.com/CADPAT-MARPAT.htm http://www.hyperstealth.com/CADPAT-MARPAT.htm http://www.hyperstealth.com/digital-design/index.htm http://www.hyperstealth.com/digital-design/index.htm
- geoka9 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camouflage#Digital_patterns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camouflage#Digital_patt...
- rbanffy 15y agoCan't believe the title isn't "the rise of the 8-bit fighter"...
- nextstep 15y agoIt's just a bunch of photos with captions. Why are those patterns picked for camp? Does anyone know how this camouflage works?
- daniel-cussen 15y agoLooks a lot like razzle-dazzle, circa 1914. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage